Scottish study reports how smokers rated vaping in recent quit attempts

A newly published population-based study has examined how people in Scotland rated the helpfulness of smoking-cessation products used in their most recent quit attempt, including e-cigarettes and vaping devices.

The open-access paper, published in the Journal of Public Health on 24 September 2026, pooled Scottish Health Survey data from 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. The analysis included 8,487 ever-smokers aged 16 or over, of whom 2,664 were current smokers and 5,823 were former smokers.

Among respondents who had used selected cessation products, the highest weighted helpfulness estimates were for varenicline and e-cigarettes or vaping devices. The study reported that 63.0% of users of e-cigarettes or vaping devices attributed at least one month of smoking abstinence to that product, while 67.5% did so for varenicline. The confidence intervals overlapped, and the authors were careful not to treat the figures as a head-to-head effectiveness ranking.

The most common single-product pattern in the analysed quit attempts was use of an e-cigarette or vaping device alone, followed by nicotine patches alone. Former smokers were much more likely than current smokers to report vaping devices as helpful, which may partly reflect the fact that their abstinence had lasted until interview.

Why the limitation matters

This was not a randomised trial. People chose their own products, may have used more than one method, and were asked to look back on a previous quit attempt. The study itself says the results describe retrospective attribution, not comparative clinical effectiveness. That distinction is important for adult smokers deciding what support to seek.

The NHS says nicotine vaping is less harmful than smoking and can be an effective quitting tool, while also advising that vaping is not risk-free and is not for children or non-smokers. This Scottish study adds useful real-world context on how people remember and interpret their own quit attempts, especially in routine settings outside a trial.

For adult smokers, the practical message is to treat vaping as one possible route away from cigarettes, ideally alongside stop-smoking support where available. For people who do not smoke, the study gives no reason to start vaping.